Red Bull's Max Verstappen takes first pole of the F1 season at Bahrain Grand Prix

In an exciting qualifying session for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix held under the Sakhir lights on Saturday night, Max Verstappen claimed pole position, beating his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez by 0.138 seconds. Verstappen set a time of 1m 29.897s on his first Q3 run before improving to a 1m 29.708s on his next lap, securing his 21st career pole position.

Ferrari locked out the second row of the grid, with Charles Leclerc ahead of Carlos Sainz, despite Leclerc not completing a second run in the pole position shootout. It appeared that he was saving a set of tires for race day.

Also read Formula 1: Can winning Bahrain Grand Prix determine the entire season’s outcome?

Fernando Alonso continued his impressive comeback with a strong run to fifth for Alpine, followed by George Russell in sixth and Lewis Hamilton in seventh, as Mercedes struggled to keep up with Red Bull's pace.

Lance Stroll, who missed pre-season testing due to wrist injuries sustained in a training accident, battled his way to eighth on the grid, ahead of Esteban Ocon in ninth for Alpine and impressive F1 returnee Nico Hulkenberg in tenth for Haas.

McLaren's Lando Norris missed out on a Q3 spot by a couple of tenths, putting his MCL60 in eleventh place on the grid, ahead of Alfa Romeo pair Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.

Yuki Tsunoda was the lead driver for AlphaTauri in 14th position, with Alex Albon getting his Williams into Q2 but abandoning his flying lap, leaving him without time for the second phase.

F1 rookie Logan Sargeant almost made it into Q2, setting an identical time to Norris, but was ultimately dropped to 16th place on the grid, ahead of Kevin Magnussen, who could not keep up with his teammate Hulkenberg, and fellow 2023 newcomers Oscar Piastri and Nyck de Vries.

One of the biggest surprises of the night was Pierre Gasly's elimination in P20 during his first qualifying session with his new team Alpine. The Frenchman had a lap time deleted, and he will start the race at the very back of the grid on Sunday.

The stage is set for an exciting season opener with Verstappen and Red Bull looking strong, but with Ferrari, Aston Martin, Alpine and Mercedes still in the mix with only a few hundredths of a second behind each other.

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